Hamburg beat Werder Bremen 2-1 at home on Sunday to keep pace with
the Bundesliga leaders going into the winter break despite playing
more than half the game with just ten men.
Joris Mathijsen scored a ninth minute header and Marcell
Jansen made it 2-0 in the 36th for Hamburg, who had Jerome Boateng
red-carded for a foul on Marko Marin when he was the last defender
just after the half hour mark.
Naldo pulled a goal back for Bremen three minutes into
stoppage time.
But Hamburg held off Bremen to improve to fourth place with
31 points from 17 matches.
"The team really deserves a lot of respect for taking home
these three points in a very tough game against a real rival," said
Hamburg coach Bruno Labbadia.
"With everything that happened in the first half, the 31
points is sensational for us. We showed great morale, even with all
the injuries and going seven games without a victory."
Werder remain on 28 points and are now sixth after their
second straight Bundesliga loss after going 23 games without a loss
in both domestic and European competition.
"We didn't play with our heads. We made it too complicated.
We could not play how we wanted to today on this field and in these
conditions. We should have played more simple," said Bremen head
coach Thomas Schaaf.
Aaron Hunt struck the crossbar for Bremen with six minutes
left and Marin hit the framework just a minute later before Naldo
scored the consolation goal for Werder.
In the other Sunday game, Cologne dominated Nuremberg to
record a 3-0 victory at home in a battle of relegation-threatened
teams.
Cologne came into the game with just seven goals from 16
games, but three headers gave it a crucial victory that lifted it
to 12th in the standings on 18 points.
Nuremberg remained mired in the relegation zone, one place
off the bottom with just 12 points.
Geromel scored Cologne's first in the 37th and Milivoje
Novakovic made it 2-0 with 20 minutes to play. The Slovenian
striker then headed home his second seven minutes later to seal the
result.
Nuremberg defender Juri Judt was sent off six minutes from
the end for a second bookable offense.
